Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 66 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Use one shared pair to measure , and the other to measure . The latter entanglement-assisted nondemolition parity measurement is obtained by applying Hadamard gates to both system qubits before and after the -parity circuit. Since at each site, the two minus signs cancel, giving .
The Bell states have joint eigenvaluesand are therefore distinguished uniquely by the two meter parities. For records and , the combined Kraus operator isEach is the rank-one projector onto the corresponding Bell state. This is a Bell-state nondemolition measurement: an input Bell state remains exactly that state for every possible local record. The local circuits can be scheduled without communication; the identity of the Bell state is known only when the classical records are brought together. Two parity bits distinguish all four Bell states without disturbing them.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 66 2 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Write the arbitrary joint pure state of the input and an external reference asThe reference vectors need not be normalized or orthogonal. Share . Label Alice's Bell states byProjecting onto this Bell basis gives the unnormalized stateEach outcome has probability . Alice sends and Bob applies , reversing the two Pauli gates. The final state is exactly for every outcome. In particular all input entanglement and other correlations with now belong to , while the reference marginal is unchanged. This is teleportation as an identity channel on a reference.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 57 3 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Write the system's basis as , and use a separate pair of meter qubits in the Bell state . Alice applies a CNOT gate from system to her meter qubit; Bob simultaneously applies a CNOT gate from to his meter qubit. Flipping neither or both meter qubits preserves , while flipping exactly one gives . Hence the entanglement-assisted nondemolition parity measurement interaction produceswhere and . Each party now measures only their meter qubit in the basis. If their binary records are , the system Kraus operator isUnequal records verify zero total spin, since vanishes precisely on the odd sector. The probability of success is , and the successful conditional state is . Every zero-total--spin state is left unchanged, including any coherent superposition of and . Similarly the even-sector coherence is preserved. This is a quantum nondemolition measurement of the parity, rather than separate measurements of both system spins.
All quantum operations and local meter measurements can finish within the spacelike time window. Nevertheless each local meter record is individually uniform: . The verification result is obtained only by comparing the records using local operations and classical communication. Thus “instantaneous” refers to the local completion of the joint measurement instrument, not instant access to its nonlocal outcome; quantum no-signalling remains intact.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 57 3 c ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
At the four eigenstates are the computational product basis, with irrelevant signs on two vectors. Alice and Bob measure their own system qubits in . These local projective measurements preserve each product eigenstate; their pair of records identifies the global outcome after local operations and classical communication.
At the four states are the Bell states. They are simultaneous eigenstates of the commuting Pauli operators and : have respective pairs . Their nonlocal parity measurements can be performed without directly distinguishing the local system spins.
Use the first shared Bell state pair to perform the entanglement-assisted nondemolition parity measurement of . Use the second shared pair for : both parties apply a local Hadamard gate to their system qubit, execute the same local system-to-meter CNOT gates and -meter measurements, then undo the Hadamard gates. This measures because . The two system parity projectors commute, since anticommutation at both sites cancels:Each is the corresponding rank-one Bell state projector. Every complete tuple of four local meter records has system Kraus operator for its two parities. Summing the four record tuples compatible with gives the ideal outcome map . The protocol is a Bell-state nondemolition measurement: an input Bell state is preserved, while an arbitrary input is projected onto the reported Bell state with the Born rule probability.
The local circuits need no adaptive communication between the laboratories, so both parties can finish inside the specified time window. Global identification of still requires later local operations and classical communication. This endpoint protocol respects quantum no-signalling, unlike the hypothetical intermediate-angle instrument in part (i).
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 66 1 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For a bipartite density operator , let , with , and similarly for other systems. The quantum conditional entropy and coherent information areUnlike classical conditional entropy, quantum conditional entropy can be negative. For a Bell state, and , giving and coherent information equal to one bit.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 66 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use one-bit remote preparation of real qubit states. Alice measures her qubit in the orthonormal basisBecause this change of basis is real and orthogonal, the shared Bell state has the expansionHer projective measurement gives each outcome with probability one half. She sends for the first outcome and for the second. Bob's conditional pure state is respectively or .
For Bob does nothing. For he applies the fixed unitary operatorwhere is the Pauli Y gate. Bob need not know , because this correction is the same for all real . Both outcomes produce the exact density operator , using one classical bit and only local operations.
This remote state preparation consumes the shared entangled state. Before receiving the bit, Bob has the mixture , independent of , as required by quantum no-signalling. The real-state restriction is what permits a fixed unitary correction of the orthogonal outcome.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 66 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use superdense coding. For the two-bit message , Alice applies to her half of the shared Bell state, where are the Pauli X gate and Pauli Z gate. The encoded states areThese four Bell states are orthonormal. Alice then transmits her one qubit to Bob, who now holds both qubits. A Bell-basis measurement identifies the message with probability one.
More explicitly, Bob can apply a CNOT gate with the received qubit as control and his original qubit as target, followed by a Hadamard gate on the control. The CNOT gate sends the encoded state toand the Hadamard gate sends this to . Computational-basis projective measurements therefore read out exactly. One transmitted qubit, assisted by one previously shared Bell pair, communicates two classical bits.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 323 3 iii b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
A density operator is a pure state exactly when its matrix rank is one. Within the admissible interval from part (a), one of and must vanish. Therefore the pure-state parameters and vectors arewhere the Bell states are . Equivalently, the purity of a density operator is , reaching one exactly at these two endpoints.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 1 10D b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
This is superdense coding. To encode , Alice applies respectively to her half of . These local Pauli operators transform the shared state into the four mutually orthogonal Bell states , up to irrelevant global phases. Alice sends her one qubit to Bob. Bob now holds both qubits and performs a Bell-basis measurement, whose outcome identifies Alice's two-bit message with certainty. One transmitted qubit communicates two classical bits because one shared Bell pair was available beforehand.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 2 15D a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Let be Alice's unknown qubit, and label her half of the shared Bell state by and Bob's by . Alice applies a Controlled-NOT gate from the unknown qubit to , then a Hadamard gate to the unknown qubit. The three-qubit state becomesAlice measures her two qubits in the computational basis and sends the two classical outcomes to Bob. Bob applies , recovering with certainty. This is quantum teleportation; Alice never needs to know the state.
For the shared GHZ state, Charlie first applies a Hadamard gate to his qubit. ThenCharlie measures in the computational basis. Outcome leaves Alice and Bob with ; outcome leaves , which either party converts to by applying after Charlie reports the outcome. Thus
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 323 1 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The partial transpose of the spin singlet state projector is the Hermitian operatorFor every separable quantum state , the positive partial transpose criterion and the trace-adjoint identity for partial transpose giveFor the specified Bell state, however,Thus is an entanglement witness detecting . In fact, it detects any state whose overlap with that Bell state exceeds .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ii Paper 1 10D a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Write . Expanding in the orthonormal Bell basis of systems gives the Bell-basis teleportation identityThus, uniformly for ,The states are unique because the four Bell states are an orthonormal basis of the two-qubit space. In particular,
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 2 10C iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
This is superdense coding. To send the two classical bits , Alice applies to her half of the shared Bell state , producing , and sends that one qubit to Bob. Bob applies followed by on the first qubit, as in part (i), and measures both qubits in the computational basis. The outcome is with certainty, so one transmitted qubit communicates two classical bits using the previously shared quantum entanglement.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 2 10C ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
The required identity isthe first exponent in the scanned statement should be . Indeed, changes the parity label from to , while multiplies the component whose first qubit is by , creating the phase label. Equivalently, the hint permits either one-qubit operator to be transferred to the second half of the Bell state by transposition.